SOLVED Share zfs snapshots with cifs

[hikingpete]

I have created a dataset that is shared with CIFS. I've configured a periodic snapshot task for its pool. I can see snapshots at /mnt/[pool]/[dataset]/.zfs/snapshot/. Changed files seem to be visible to WIndows' "Previous Versions" interface.

What I'm trying to do is configure a (additional) CIFS share that shows the snapshots of this dataset. I have configured two shares as follows:
{path: /mnt/pool/dataset, name: dataset},
{path: /mnt/pool/dataset/.zfs/snapshot, name: datasetSnapshots}

When I try to access the datasetSnapshots share using smbclient I get the error message 'NT_STATUS_NOT_SUPPORTED listing \*'. My best guess is that this is a result of '.zfs' appearing in the 'veto files' configuration setting that I can't seem to control. How can I verify this, and what do I do if this is indeed the case? The file /etc/local/smb4.conf seems to be overwritten every time I restart the CIFS service.

 

[L]

You are correct. The smb4.conf gets overwritten. I would love to see this go into a feature request for the future. Current behavior is that snapshots not be exposed to users.

 

[hikingpete]

Thanks for the response, but I'm still struggling with what my next step is. I need to enable access to the snapshots - is my only option to abandon FreeNAS then? Can anybody recommend any alternatives?

 

[anodos]

Snapshots are presented through 'previous versions' on Windows client (through vfs_shadowcopy2). No extra config needed if I recall correctly.

 

[Ericloewe]

Snapshots are presented through 'previous versions' on Windows client (through vfs_shadowcopy2). No extra config needed if I recall correctly.

You do need to choose which snapshot task is exposed, since only one can be. I'm not sure if the last-created one is still automagically chosen, but the option of manually choosing one was added in one of the 9.3.0 releases.

No extra config beyond that.

 

[hikingpete]

After looking a bit further at Windows Previous Versions, I realize now that I can open previous versions of folders - and indeed the entire share itself. I hadn't realized this, and now I understand why nobody has bothered with this feature. Thanks everybody for trying to help me out here.

 

[Ericloewe]

After looking a bit further at Windows Previous Versions, I realize now that I can open previous versions of folders - and indeed the entire share itself. I hadn't realized this, and now I understand why nobody has bothered with this feature. Thanks everybody for trying to help me out here.

It does have the major limitation of only being able to export a single snapshot task. I don't remember why that was, but it was a complicated scenario.

 

[hikingpete]

That's an interesting point, and would certainly be a nice feature. It would be very nice to have a small number of high-frequency snapshots, and then more lower frequency snapshots.

 

[Ericloewe]

That's an interesting point, and would certainly be a nice feature. It would be very nice to have a small number of high-frequency snapshots, and then more lower frequency snapshots.

You'll have to choose which of those snapshot tasks you wish to export, for the foreseeable future.